plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
That was the plan, yes.
It's just hard to sit down and do it when I know it'll only cover one snapshot in time.
If You Love'er So Much, Why Don't You Mari'er? (Battletech) (Mature)
- Thread starter plotvitalnpc
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi Romance
It's just hard to sit down and do it when I know it'll only cover one snapshot in time.
Mis-jumps happen. And considering the coordinates everyone else has leads to a different planet, they'll probably write it off as that, or Marcus feeding them a line and running off to play pirate or something. Annoying, yes. Expensive cock-up, yes. But not something that'll throw a cat amongst the pigeons unless something else happens.
XelianEmperor
Fragile. Handle with care
Finally some stompy robots and even space stomp
Hopfully the momentum of the story holds please continue
Hopfully the momentum of the story holds please continue
GeshronTyler
Kleiner Giftzwerg
Ah, so the prospective Filbuster-er just cut his "partners" off, leaving them behind with bad coordinates, instead of anything more permanent. Unfortunately, for him and his "muscle", Alphard was more than capable of dealing with them.
Quite the nice windfall, of at least one Jumpship, and several dropships, in presumably decent (for IS standards) condition, plus dozens of tanks, ASFs, and battlemechs... Though the variety of types/models make for logistical issues. They could at least serve as assets for scouting/observation/Inte/tradel missions outside the bounds of the MU, and/or as aggressor units for training... Well, as long as the transponders and drive/emissions signatures, and possible unique identifiable visual markings are modified.
The mules might be most interesting for the MU, as cargo carriers are probably always in short supply... The military dropships are no doubt nice to have, but military hulls are less efficient for commerce, and thus generating GDP...
Quite the nice windfall, of at least one Jumpship, and several dropships, in presumably decent (for IS standards) condition, plus dozens of tanks, ASFs, and battlemechs... Though the variety of types/models make for logistical issues. They could at least serve as assets for scouting/observation/Inte/tradel missions outside the bounds of the MU, and/or as aggressor units for training... Well, as long as the transponders and drive/emissions signatures, and possible unique identifiable visual markings are modified.
The mules might be most interesting for the MU, as cargo carriers are probably always in short supply... The military dropships are no doubt nice to have, but military hulls are less efficient for commerce, and thus generating GDP...
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Kataphraktos
Remove gringo from premises
Bear in mind that the canon Marians were left alone for the most part by the FWL, and those chuckleheads were actually committing piracy against their worlds compared to the Union. The Mariks have far more pressing concerns to worry about in general unless the Union having significant shipyards and mech plants get leaked in the immediate future.
Chapter 38 (February 2970 - March 2979)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
---
Marian Joint Assembly, Pomerium Planned City, Alphard
Marian Union, Antispinward Periphery
February 2970
Sala felt like she was going to melt where she sat. Arranged on the far side of the room were the three biggest names in the Marian Union as it currently existed - Dominus Alan Clayton, the head of her own organization, Consul Petra O'Reilly, the theoretical last word on matters of territorial defense and diplomacy, and Tribunal Dux Elise Grant, who led the admirable assembly responsible for upholding and codifying criminal justice and similar. Normally a member of the Promethean Order would never meet with the Dominus or Dominisa in the course of their career - unless one gained a High Philosophership and joined the Academy Council, there was simply too much of a gap between the posting of someone with simple, local responsibilities and the supreme overseer of the Order's mission.
Yet here she sat before the assembled Triarchs, shivering in her seat, stuck with the realization that not only was she now acquainted with the three heads of state and government, but that - per her direct supervisor, Senior Philosopher Paul Neddich, by whose side she sat - her larger than planned role in the expedition obligated her to speak on the matter.
Even the nineteen year old Lily Clayton, heir apparent to the title of Dominisa, sat with more confidence than her. It spoke to the power imbalance, and, perhaps, the preparation imbalance. She, in her early thirties, had been prepared to handle lower matters of immediate relevance - the management of an engineering team, most principally. She wasn't ever trained to hold court, or assembly, or to coordinate the work of vast groups from on-high.
She couldn't hear anything from him, but in her heart of hearts she knew Dan was silently giggling at her display. The absolute smartass - he was just here to listen, she was the one who'd been dragged out of her comfort zone to testify.
As everyone settled into their positions, the Consul spoke up. "Ambassador Plenipotentiary Bartolomeo Vassiliades, rise and brief the assembled persons on the mission to the territory of the Axumite Providence."
"As you wish, milady." the aged man declared, rising slowly from his seat with a faint smile. If Sala were that spry when she was his age, maybe that would be proof that a patrician's physical conditioning work was no joke. "Our voyage set out from Alphard following the trail of anomalous signatures in the Caesar's Bow region of space, as ordered. As this was the second expedition, we already had a sense for where we were aiming - a correct one. Just over seven hundred and twenty light years from Alphard, by straight line reckoning, we located the homeworld of the nation known as the Ummadda Barakeysan ee Aksum - which, our language expert has relayed, is commonly translated to Axumite Providence by its own merchants, when dealing with those fluent in English. As the documents submitted will show, we were informed there that they have recently suffered from elevated levels of piracy, and very briefly handled under suspicion of complicity - normally, it is their habit to go to their trade partners, rather than have them come to them, so anyone who actively sought them out was seen as somewhat suspect."
"Well, I don't suppose anyone here can particularly fault them for the paranoia, our own diplomatic footing being as it is." Petra declared, waiving a hand in the air. "It isn't as though we haven't had similar experiences - and we've been far more punitive on those occasions.
Yeah, that was one thing. She hadn't been back on-world for long, but Sala had heard whisperings of a pirate attack that actually made groundfall or something?
"That said…" the consul added, after a moment. "You were dispatched with the intent of achieving more than just a mutual exchange of identities on this occasion. Of the goals you were sent to enact, how many were you able to get around to?"
"That is…" the diplomat began. "Well, it was a bit of a task to communicate in this case, because the high officials with whom I was negotiating no more spoke any of my languages than I theirs, so both sides were working through interpreters, but I'm glad to announce that our primary goals have been achieved, along with a bit more besides. On the topic of the technology transfer, I will defer in a moment to our own interpreter and subject matter expert, Philosopher Sala Bineen of the Promethean Order, but first I will cover in brief the other matters we have settled upon. Firstly, a pact of non-aggression and friendship has been penned - symbolic though it may be given the great distance - along with a general trade agreement permitting either party to send mercantile vessels to the territory of the other. To conclude that agreement… it was necessary to transfer, as was permitted if necessary, a set of Marian star charts - as of the current moment, the location of our various worlds is known in no uncertain terms to a foreign power. The Axumites are interested in particular in importing examples of Spheroid technology for comparison to their own work, and to some extent in purchasing germanium - though they have local sources. In exchange, they are willing to authorize the export of completed jumpships and dropshuttles - their customary exports, though they would not normally include their more distinctive technologies in ships built for export. The Axumites further sought to delineate our respective spheres of influence and astrographic claims - although not settled heavily, they consider the systems within one hundred and twenty light years of Thala to be within their own natural borders for security reasons, but in exchange will acknowledge us as legitimate claimants to the rest of Caesar's Bow if necessary."
The consul flicked her gaze to her compatriots for a second before smiling. "...Rather generous of them to cut the borders that unevenly. What prompted them to accept a 120:600 light year split in the intermediate zone?"
"Expansion towards Terra is not a national priority of theirs in the way that expansion away from it might be regarded as one of ours. The direction of their colonial expansion is primarily oriented deeper into the periphery. Rather, originally the border treaty simply took the form of their noting they had no plans for anything beyond that point - that it would overburden their current humanitarian resources to try and engulf all of those worlds, and that they are not particularly versed in integrating outside cultures into their society." Bartolomeo explained further. "So they suggested to us that if the plight of the locals was a concern, it was more effective for the Marian Union to take up the territory, and would help to solidify trade and defense relations between us - the distance between our capitals may only be, while respecting practical routing, thirty jumps to us, but to them it is closer to sixty - and even allowing for their quick-jump technology, that is roughly a forty three week journey. Hardly within practical reach."
"I suppose so."
"It wasn't until after we'd concluded the technology exchange, though, that they suggested making a formal treaty delineating the theoretical borders, though." the man concluded. "They seemed to think they were giving less than they were receiving in the matter, and so thought to repay one gratuity with another to strengthen ties. They may see quite a lot in the prospect of alliance with us."
This time, it was the Dominus who spoke up, raising his hand slowly. "I understand that they have, evidently, been using the far less efficient Radetsky Architecture of jump drive dating back to the twenty second century due to their isolation, and so even with faster paced jumps achieve lower actual travel speeds, but I'm not sure how an exchange of the Farnsworth Architecture for quick-jump capabilities can be imbalance in such a way. After we each implement each-other's innovations, won't we both be traveling at least forty two light years per week, assuming no further improvements in speed are attained? I would think that more mass and power efficient, longer jumps and more frequent jumps would be considered similarly groundbreaking innovations."
Senior Philosopher Neddich coughed into the ball of his hand. "For that, we will defer to my junior, Philosopher Bineen, as promised. Although I have debriefed her on the matter, as the primary translator involved in preparing the Axumite technical documents for inclusion in our archives and the interpreter of the trade deal, she understands the technical issues involved better."
Sala's hands were like running faucets of sweat, or so it felt. Nodding to psyche herself up, she rose slowly. "Y-y-yes! W-well…"
"At your own pace, Philosopher." Dominus Clayton cautioned, smiling down. "We understand quite well that you're well outside of your comfort zone here."
Swallowing heavily, she nodded again. "Yes, your holiness."
All eyes in the room turned toward her, as she left it filled with silence.
It took another deep breath before she could begin. "Negotiations for this initial technology exchange proceeded, at first, through the preparation of executive summaries of one another's offerings by a meeting of qualified technicians. As a result, they were informed of the qualities of the Farnsworth Architecture, KF booms, and the charging sail, all technologies which developed into publicly available forms at least a century after the departure of their original colonial expedition. Although they were quite taken with the benefits of the architecture and the solar charging sail, they were immediately disinterested in the KF boom after receiving more than a summary explanation of it. Once they explained the general characteristics of their fast jump technology, I came to understand why, and we agreed that the trade was imbalanced in their favor."
"Was the conclusion that docking collars and fast jump technology are inherently incompatible, then?" Alan asked, rubbing his chin. "There must have been some extremely damning evidence, if you came to that mutual conclusion so incredibly quickly as that."
Sala nodded. "You are familiar with the way that a Lithium-Fusion Battery integrates with its paired core, yes? It is fundamentally integrated with the structure of the core in a way that makes it impossible to simply pop out and replace, or to install after the fact, and although the fundamental core architecture remains unchanged it makes it many times more difficult to successfully cast the core, particularly if docking collars are desired. Fast-jump technology is a similarly invasive but far bulkier assembly. The entire core must be designed to integrate specialized cooling and charging lines, and then wrapped in a vastly expanded engineering section integrating added heat banks, helium tankage, capacitors, breeder reactors, and an untold number of autonomous control systems and monitoring devices, to facilitate safely cooling and charging in five days without allowing any surges or imbalanced thermal exchanges from damaging the drive. Even if a collar could successfully be cast as part of the core, it would render the engineering section and cooling-charging sleeve impossible to shape properly and introduce a point of weakness - of failure into the drive. From their perspective, integrating the technology with the newer design principles seemed poised to reduce drive mass and increase per-jump range, while the use of variable-diameter charging sails seemed poised to reduce their dependency on regular refueling greatly. They stand to greatly improve their ships while giving up nothing, particularly if further trade in computers and other technology can enhance the fast-charge systems, while we…"
"Cannot integrate fast charge technology without giving up a fundamental part of what has defined Spheroid interstellar travel for nearly five hundred years." Alan conclude, cupping his chin. "It'd mean a return to the use of dropshuttles, in exchange for a greater speed. We could jump forty two, sixty, perhaps even one day two hundred and ten light years in a single week, but at the start and end of the trip it would take hours to load and unload our parasite craft. I'm surprised they were so forthright as to try and even out that disparity - normally you'd simply be happy to have a trade deal go your way."
Ambassador Bartolomeo rose again, coughing into the back of his hand. "They seemed very particular about strengthening relationships. It is my belief that they have identified further technology transfers with the Marian Union as fundamental to their national security. Furthermore…given the content of some of our other discussions, I believe they may hope that our expansion will enable us to engage in a formal defensive alliance in the future, or to conduct joint antipiracy efforts in our mutual hinterland. Additionally, they would like for me to return with permission to exchange permanent embassies on each-other's capitals, each of us contributing to the arrangement by committing to commit at least one ship to the task of ensuring that one round trip is concluded every year."
The head of the senate glanced to her peers. "Making such a long trip a regular event would probably strain the health and sanity of those involved if we were to stick with the Scouts. However… we've recently acquired a vessel that could make the trip without undue discomfort, and which wouldn't fit well into our existing transportation network. All we'd need to do is set up appropriate production of spare parts, yes?"
Responding to that look, Sala's own top superior cupped his chin.
"Spare parts for a Star Lord…it's a notoriously difficult ship to keep in good order, due to its complexity and luxury." the Dominus commented. "But we believe that the Shetland can be restored to, and kept in, full working order, and the things are fairly traditional as diplomatic transports for a reason. The crew would be kept under full earth gravity throughout the entire trip with relative comfort, and six collars would be enough to permit…well, not a large volume of trade as a secondary to the diplomatic contact, but it would be some trade - over such large distances, ideas are a denser carrier of value than material items anyways."
"So, then, are we for it?" asked the Consul.
The Tribunal Dux broke her silence for the first time in the evening. "I'm naturally for an exchange of diplomatic relationships with them, now that we've gone so far as to reveal our existence and location to them, but before putting my support behind anything like an alliance, I'd like to hear a bit more about their society - and in particular, their human rights record. As someone who oversees justice and the popular will, I can't in good conscience ask our citizens to support a monstrous society."
The ambassador smiled. "I think you'll find that what we've seen is much more encouraging than that, although it would take more missions to conclusively determine whether we've seen it all. As of now, though… they seem like a very charitable and humanitarian people, at least within their own borders. Just… without a particular excess of resources with which to expand that policy beyond them."
"I suppose that will have to do for now."
---
Comstar First Circuit Compound
Hilton Head Island, North America, Terra
December 2970
"For your eyes, Precentor."
Karl Sims furrowed his brow as one of his staffers passed a verigraphed compad to him, before darting out of the room. It was relatively rare that something needed to be escalated directly to him unscheduled like this - normally, it was only if Precentor Mars was reaching out or in critical circumstances that he'd receive reports piecemeal rather than consolidated between departments.
This one didn't bear the seal of the Explorer Corps nor Outward Intelligence, though. "What the devil has the Mercenary Review Board reaching out to ROM like this?"
Tapping his thumb on the scanner pad, he grumbled at the blood droplets that seeped out after he drew it away - damned needles. Whoever had elected to verigraph the damned thing to him had made his life a hair more difficult just now. Probably some novice staffer who underestimated the security of his electronic inbox and so felt it needed to be delivered in a bloodthirstier form.
Resorting to physical tablets as a medium for data transfer was only protocol for when the system was dow-
He checked his desktop briefly. The system was down for maintenance, and he hadn't noticed. A sigh rumbled out of his chest. He tapped at the one file left on the thing, feeling briefly like a bit of a fool for getting worked up about that. He was in charge of far too much to be flying off the handle at the illusion of a single improperly filed document.
Scanning the headline of the document slowly, he massaged his forehead. The 'United Shipyard Association of the Free Worlds League' was seeking three mercenary regiments with which to enforce an embargo on the commercial activities of the Illyrian Palatinate. That was an…aspirational order on their part, but on its own nothing about it explained to him why he should care about it.
The phrase Illyrian Palatinate was vaguely familiar to him, but not in a way where he could actually point to it on a map, while he'd never heard of the USAFWL.
His eyes drifted down to scan the lead paragraph for context. The Association was… a privately traded joint-company incorporated by the current CEOs of the Free Worlds League's jumpship manufacturers just over a year ago. That was big news. Why the bloody hell hadn't he heard about it then, though?
They were seeking to embargo the Illyrian Palatinate to stem the flow of 'illicit' germanium, illegally mined from a facility they claimed ownership of by a double crossing business associate and similarly treacherous mercenaries. They'd been fraudulently induced into paying for the rights to a germanium mine which was not located at the suggested coordinates by the heir to a pre-Succession War company which evidently owned the source planet, and intended now to occupy the periphery state which was laundering the material into the Free Worlds League to facilitate the acquisition of the source system's true location in order to recover their property.
Really, though, why hadn't he heard of this? And why did parts of it seem so familiar?
The context, he understood quite well now - a regiment each of battlemechs and conventional forces had gone AWOL on a mission to seize a germanium mine from squatters, issued by a purchasing cartel founded by the leads of various jumpship manufacturers in order to profit off of selling the material to the companies they, themselves, were substantial minority shareholders in. This mine was sold to them but then fraudulently retained by its presumptive lawful inheritor, and so in order to recover their property, they sought to effectively conquer a minor periphery state and use it as a bridge to force the information out of the merchants.
What a perfectly Spheroid thing to do.
Why did it bother him so much more than one would normally expect, though?
Ah, there was an approximate map of the area at the bottom of the document - rendered in text, mercifully, because this Compad could barely accept even the most rudimentary images.
Naturally, given its evident proximity to the Free Worlds League, the target of this planned violence was… Rimward-Antispinward of Terra.
Rimward-Antispinward. That was the last direction the Explorer Corps was set to travel in - depending on how long their ballooning involvement in their other operations areas took, they were expected to start exhaustive surveying of the region in 2980 or later. It'd been set up approximately that way because it was…where Precentor Mars actually wanted to look.
He let out a long, anguished groan.
It was where Precentor Mars actually wanted to look… because the mercenaries hired by the family he'd become obsessed with had turned up in the Illyrian Palatinate. What had they been doing there? Helping some unsavory character who shared a last name with the disappeared family sell germanium!
The memories came back like a flood, and his inquisitive mind instantly drew associations between them.
He needed to get some of his clerks on this matter a week ago, and he needed to talk to his sister about this yesterday. This was time sensitive in a way very few things were.
- -
"Goodness, Karl. What's got you breathing so hard with Christmas so near at hand?"
Adrienne watched him with a concerned gaze as he stood, heaving over her desk, hands clasped on the rim.
"I just so happen… haaa-haaa… to believe I've found Precentor Mars' little obsession." he proclaimed, trying to catch his breath even as he spoke.
"Sit the hell down before you try to explain anything, brother." she snapped, gesturing to the chair. "It does us both no good if you die of a heart attack before you finish a paragraph. What's this about Mars' fixation with the O'Reilly's, though?"
It was only natural that she'd remembered the name sooner than he had. She was the smarter sibling.
He settled back into the guest chair and sat as quietly as he could for a few seconds, rhythmically tapping his own forehead. "Not so long ago, a report came to my desk from our agents in the Mercenary Review Board. A contract had been posted on the board for a multi-regimental subjugation force to occupy the Illyrian Palatinate - that periphery state the court fool used to visit as a merchant, where the pirate-mercenaries he was so convinced had killed that family had been spotted were selling germanium. It was posted by a group of jumpship manufacturers, to facilitate their claiming control over a lucrative germanium mine located somewhere in the region, suspected to be occupied by pirates, which was formerly owned by one 'Alphard Trading Company', based on the planet of Alphard, not far from Terra, during the Star League days. They'd purchased it from the lawful inheritor on good evidence of its legitimacy, but were given false coordinates, and suspect the seller has convinced the mercenaries hired to betray them and seize control himself."
"It does sound like whatever they're trying to claim is the location he's so fixated on, but…" his sister asked, wrinkling her nose at him. "What's the significance of learning all of this now?"
"I know where the mine is! I tracked down shipping manifests in the Star League era archives originated from the ATC, sourcing their germanium as mined on a second world known as Alphard, located approximately -405, -298 around a G3 class star. " Karl declared throwing his hands out wide. "But more than that, every bit further we've dug into the situation has just made it more clear that something as profoundly concerning as Mars' sensationalist warnings is happening in the region. Since fairly early this century, roughly coinciding with the renewed flow of germanium presumed to originate on New Alphard, there's been a sharp decline in reported incidents of piracy in the flank of the Free Worlds League, and an accompanying increase in commercial activity - though the disappearances of those who've gone beyond the boundary of the Inner Sphere have remained at the normal rate. This effect has even been felt as far as parts of the antispinward Lyran Commonwealth, and-"
"Shh, shh, shh." Adrienne cautioned, holding a finger out to him. "I understand. Mark might have been surprisingly on-the-mark about whatever's going on down there being a serious matter. Rather than a single planet bandit holdout, it's more like we're looking at a real, growing nation there - one with the rule of law, actual anchoring power, and the capacity to secure its borders against banditry - plus a serious desire for secrecy. It's possible they lost to the mercenaries, but it's also possible they won. Do you know how they could have gotten into that position to begin with, though?"
He shook his head vigorously. "There's no way the volume of goods known to flow to Illyria in exchange for the germanium can account for that."
"Then they've either got other backers, they've got trade partners in the deep periphery, or they're self-supplied." the Primus mused, cupping the side of her face in one hand. "And we don't know which. Any of those things could be problematic in their own right, but uncertainty is worst. What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to pull out one of the larger ROM cells in the Comguard and task them, along with some other loyalists of mine, to check in on the situation." Karl promised. "Should I cut Mars in on the matter? My personal inclination is no."
The Primus chewed her bottom lip. "No, I don't believe so. He doesn't truly understand, nor believe in, our divine mission. His interest in this matter is purely a matter of sentiment - of curiosity, and he can't be relied upon to guide his subordinates appropriately for what's to come once his goals are satisfied. We need people who can be relied upon to react rationally, rather than emotionally, commanding this operation."
"I'll keep him out of the loop on this, then." Karl replied, massaging his chin. "As for forces, at the very least, I think we need to consider the possibility that the USAFWL have underestimated the forces needed to seize their target, and have an appropriately re-sized military response waiting for if it proves necessary to destroy what we discover."
"Good. Do that." Adrienne insisted, her eyes narrow. "Make sure to prepare properly for it, though. If my drea-... if the worse possibilities we've imagined are true, we'll just need to let our kind associate Mark find the ruins of his reward in place of the real thing."
Karl nodded, a frown on his face at the near reference to her dreams. "I'll prepare for the possibility that the jumpship manufacturers are underestimating the resistance they'd face trying to take their prize. The first step, though, will be the threat assessment itself. Anything of the sort will, however, invariably take time to prepare - particularly if it is to be subtle."
"We'll need to make extra work for the Explorer Corps, then." Adrienne concluded. "To make sure Mars doesn't give away the game before we're ready. Give them an order to investigate the rumors of an elusive star nation in the rimward nebulae that they've been reporting."
"Of course."
---
Zenith Jump Point, Alphard System
Marian Union, Antispinward Periphery
March 2979
As the jump completed, Precentor Jeff Jonnels was already in motion. "Sweemey, restore sensors as soon as possible and conduct an active search. Phibirev, get the comms system online to monitor local radio traffic. Erochia, ensure the crew of Deliverance remains at battle positions. Nondesi, prepare the HPG to broadcast as necessary. Lhodes, be ready to carry out an escape jump upon demand."
There was no time for gentle, gradual recovery or anything else of the sort, and the crew of Toyama's Vision knew it well. This operation had been roughly nine years in the making - nine years to secure the necessary ships out of the Tramp production runs, to gather the forces needed from ROM and the Comguards, to manufacture their covers as members of the Explorer Corps, to push through this mission without Mars noticing. Now that they were in what should, for all purposes, be considered enemy territory, there was no room for relaxation.
Half a minute passed before the call went out from the other side of the room. "Passive sensors are online. No immediate contacts registered. Heavy radio frequency noise noted. Active sensors online in two-point-five minutes."
That seemed to confirm that they'd arrived in the correct system - in the second Alphard. Looking at the readouts fed over to his personal panel, the captain of the vessel could see very clearly that the quantity of radio communications reaching out to the jump point was great enough that only a major planetary civilization could allow for it. No doubt, if they idled at the jump point a while this ship was capable of giving much more detailed readouts on it, but they already had a profile on the planetary ecology from the ancient records that led them here.
It wouldn't be necessary, though - they were here to visit that planet, to measure its threat level, to acquire navigational charts, and to enable the full surveyed or - if necessary - destruction of the civilization this world so clearly anchored.
It was regrettable to consider destroying a hardy flower that could bloom even during the depredations of the Succession Wars - Blessed Blake himself had written quite clearly that Comstar's first mission was to prevent the eradication of civilization. However, they had already failed at that task, and quite dramatically at that. Thus did the prophet Toyama caution them that the downfall was already set in stone - that they could only seek to survive through to the other end and restore civilization from there, and his disciple Karpov cautioned that for the sake of ensuring that, despite protracted association with the monsters of the Great Houses, Comstar did not become tainted with their madness, it would be necessary to greatly accelerate the collapse by expanding a Holy Shroud to snare away the lords of carrion who feasted upon the viscera of once great humanity.
If these people were not a threat or were not corrupted, they could be made part of Blake's holy work. If not, they would need to be laid to waste to preserve the seedcorn for a new humanity from their salting of the earth. That they made few if any clear external moves suggested that they may be at least somewhat clear of the madness that infested the Inner Sphere.
"Communications are encrypted. Code unknown." declared one of Phibirev's acolytes, fingers clattering loudly on her keyboard.
"HPG confirmed ready for emergency broadcast."
"Continuous jump calculations underway!"
"Active sensors online in five…four…three…two…one!" Sweemey called out, before shock overtook his face. "Multiple large scale contacts detected higher in the jump point. There's a silent running ambush force waiting above us!"
Precentor Jonnels rubbed his chin. "Broadcast an unencrypted call for them to hold fire. Inform them that the neutrality of the Comstar Explorer Corps is backed by international treaty, the threat of strict interdiction, and the very divine will of Blake himself, and that we have no hostile intentions in entering the Alphard system."
Well, a civilization off the network might not have cared so much about either of those latter two items, but it was important to use the name to protect themselves here. These sorts of precautions weren't totally unknown, simply increasingly rare in a time of ever-degrading infrastructure and fleets - they gave system defenders time to evaluate the threat posed by a new arrival and seek an ideal time, if a threat was identified, to strike. There was no inherent guarantee of violence on the part of the locals just from this.
It was still possible that their isolationist and defensive footing could be made useful, or that they lacked the capabilities needed to justify any harsher treatment than was given to other extant nations in the case of belligerence.
The message was sent, and Jeff waited.
"Thermal signatures rising from ambush force - they've turned their reactors back on!"
He gritted his teeth. "Ready the Deliverance to launch!"
Phibirev cut through the tension with a firm shout. "Receiving continuous laser broadcast from local forces. Format is audiovisual. Permission to put it onscreen, Precentor?"
"Granted."
The large screen at the head of the bridge changed contents immediately, charts banished from sight to be replaced with a remarkably clear video broadcasted from the bridge of one of the vessels that were now stationkeeping 'above' Toyama's Vision. On it, a woman he'd place at perhaps about forty years of age occupied the screen, dressed in an outfit unmistakable as anything other than a military uniform, already mid-sentence. "-the Alphard system is under strict quarantine for disease management purposes. Do not attempt to burn into the system. Repeat: Comstar Explorer Corps vessel, this is Commodore Alison Brancis of the Joint Military of the Marian Union, broadcasting to inform you that by order of the central government, the Alphard system is under strict quarantine for-"
"Should we return transmission, Precentor?"
He pondered that for a second. "Link my personal camera and microphone for transmission. I will control them personally."
"Yes, sir!"
His right hand rested on his personal console, and once the light turned green he flicked the audio and video switches to on. "Commodore Brancis, Precentor Jeff Jonnels of the Comstar Explorer Corps speaking. Is it possible that we-"
- -
"- may be able to offer any sort of medical aid in this troubled time?"
Alison wanted to click her tongue, but she couldn't. She was on video right now, for the sake of avoiding seeming too threatening. Even if she muted herself to rant in private, they'd see the lipflaps - or notice that she'd shut off the camera briefly. They were already several scripts down the list of pre-prepared responses to unauthorized entry after these visitors had pinged them with active sensors, sought to make peaceful contact, and used the proper name of the star system. "I'm afraid you misunderstand, Precentor. The quarantine is not to keep a pestilence in - it is to keep it out. It is well known that the Inner Sphere has abandoned the laws and customs of civilized warfare and employed weapons of mass destruction, biological ones included. As such, any vessel which has left our borders - or come from outside of it - is required to observe a minimum forty day quarantine to prevent the spread of long-incubation bioagents."
The blond man broadcasting from the newly arrived Tramp - which was now being continuously scanned for distinguishing characteristics and unusual activity - tented his hands together and sighed. "Commodore, Blessed Blake's Explorer Corps is an elite institution born from the center of human civilization. Even if the absolute, deep barbarism you speak of were not an element of a bygone era of the Succession Wars, we alone would be unquestionably clean handed."
She could feel her blood pressure rise at the arrogant praise of Terra, but she tamped down on it. No matter what, she couldn't let them go through to the planet. Holding them up here was necessary to prevent them from detecting the shipyard under construction in orbit around the planet, and allow time to formulate a better response. They already knew the name of this system, which meant they'd recovered records of its existence, perhaps even deliberately came here specifically to check in on it. Maybe they'd gotten curious after the attack earlier in the decade and stumbled upon Star League era records while trying to track down the source of the germanium entering the market.
It ought to be well within their ability. Comstar was in the guide on military protocol as a significant potential threat - the founders believed that the Star League successor organization was most likely far more dangerous, ambitious, and advanced than it presented itself as being.
In any case, assuming their claimed identity was genuine - and given that the man was dressed in robes that matched their supposed uniform, she was inclined to believe it was so - it would achieve comparatively little to seize their ship immediately. Comstar already knew about Alphard, and almost certainly already suspected that there was an interstellar civilization of some sort located around it. Seizing their vessels - entirely possible even with their full forces remaining here, given the enhanced jump point security since the last attack - would simply lead them to believe that it was a pirate civilization - which could theoretically serve their purposes, but equally might result in them leaking the coordinates to try and have them dealt with by the League or some other party.
It was better, in this case, to have them leave with an impression that painted the system as unremarkable and unworthy of attention. Fortunately, there was time to wait them out - there were no more scheduled arrivals this week.
She sighed, giving a firm shake of her head. "I do not have the authority to alter the quarantine protocol, Precentor. Your vessels will not be permitted access to the inner system without observing the quarantine period, and that is final."
Precentor Jonnels frowned, his brow furrowed. "It is disappointing to learn that you trust in Blake so little. All of the nations of the Inner Sphere permit the Blessed Order - along with operating HPG stations on their surfaces - to utilize the land it is apportioned to provide free education and medical services to those in need, and to these ends guarantee the freedom of travel of members of the Blessed Order regardless of the circumstances as part of the service contract. If we were carrying plague about like some rambling band of refugees might, humanity would already have found its extinction."
"Be that as it may, there exists no contractual relationship between our nation and Comstar." the Commodore declared, matching the irritation evident from the man on the other end of the line. "We have no obligation to risk the safety of our homeland on your say-so. Furthermore, we have no direct proof of your identity or qualifications. We must ask you to leave when able, if you will not observe the quarantine."
Jeff's face turned a bit red at that. "If you cannot trust a good neighbor, you certainly will not be judged as one yourself, Commodore. In this era of healing, we have begun reestablishing HPG stations in much of the periphery, but if you are unable to embrace Comstar as a worthy partner, the Marian Union surely shall not receive the blessings of Blake's holy technology, and remain in darkness. Nevertheless… if you will provide us with the locations of other systems in the Marian Union, we would gladly visit them instead, to chart your nation and bring it into the civilized company of the rest of charted space."
By now, she was completely certain that this man and his vessel had been dispatched for the sole purpose of surveying Alphard. "The other systems of the Union are also under similar quarantine measures. Besides which, I cannot comply with that request. It is not the intention of the government to seek closer cohabitation with the Inner Sphere or charted Periphery nations. If we had any such intention, we would have established formal contact some time ago and given out the information on our own initiative. Missing out on the chance to receive, in whatever lukewarm form is truly being given to the Periphery, Comstar's services is a fairly small price to pay for the safety that comes with anonymity and invisibility - the greatest shields against the barbarism of this age, of the Inner Sphere states."
The man gritted his teeth. "Your paranoia will doom your civilization to misery and gradual decline in the darkness beyond Terra's light.
"Such hostility is unwarranted." she replied. "If you truly simply wish to do your charitable duty as a member of Comstar. Do you make a habit of forcing your services upon nations against their choosing?"
His eyes were sharp as he glared back. "It is not your place to tell me what is or is not warranted, Periphery barbarian. Is it the right of any government to inflict suffering in silence and deprivation on its citizens, just to preserve the power of the elite? We shall not leave until you permit us entry."
"That is how quarantines work, yes. If you're equipped for exploration, I doubt you'll have any issue with surviving through a mere forty day quarantine."
She mentally checked out of the conversation for the moment, leaving the man to rant on his own flicking through the notifications that were building up on her console before, eventually, noting one from the intelligence sector of the station. The expanded sensor and communications masts beyond those standard for the Tramp class jumpship, they claimed, made the vessel a perfect match for the ships used by coreward pirates who'd been robbing the Axumites.
Slowly, she glanced back to the camera. Even assuming they weren't the pirates that'd attacked Axum, this at least provided a valid excuse to tell them to leave indefinitely. There was nothing better she could possibly be given right now, aside from a legitimate cause to board and seize the vessel. "'Precentor' Jonnels, your modified vessel has been identified as a potential match for a variant known to be used by pirates in this region of the periphery. You will leave as soon as your drive is charged and not return, or we will initiate hostilities."
A vein bulged on his forehead. "This is absurd. You have no right! You will not- this is!"
He cut the transmission there. She matched the gesture with a sigh.
"Commodore, a significant radio signature is being produced from the target vessel!"
She glanced back to her chief sensor officer, Dan Fitzgerald. "Are they jumping? Does that thing have a Lithium Fusion battery?"
"Negative, not a jump signature." the man denied. "Going by the handbook, this signature is indicative of a mobile hyperpulse generator unit."
"They're broadcasting?" she cried. "Prepare all crews to board the vessel immediately - permission to destroy it if necessary is granted, but it is preferred that you recover the coordinates it is broadcasting to."
Dan let out an uncharacteristically high yelp a moment later. "That won't be necessary, Commodore. Multiple emergent jump signatures detected. They called reinforcements!"
She smashed her hand against the console, a mix of panic beginning to overtake her. "Call ours, then!"
It was time to put their preparations to the test, it seemed.
---------
Bit late, I will acknowledge. But! There's a bonus.
Scene 1
---Marian Joint Assembly, Pomerium Planned City, Alphard
Marian Union, Antispinward Periphery
February 2970
Sala felt like she was going to melt where she sat. Arranged on the far side of the room were the three biggest names in the Marian Union as it currently existed - Dominus Alan Clayton, the head of her own organization, Consul Petra O'Reilly, the theoretical last word on matters of territorial defense and diplomacy, and Tribunal Dux Elise Grant, who led the admirable assembly responsible for upholding and codifying criminal justice and similar. Normally a member of the Promethean Order would never meet with the Dominus or Dominisa in the course of their career - unless one gained a High Philosophership and joined the Academy Council, there was simply too much of a gap between the posting of someone with simple, local responsibilities and the supreme overseer of the Order's mission.
Yet here she sat before the assembled Triarchs, shivering in her seat, stuck with the realization that not only was she now acquainted with the three heads of state and government, but that - per her direct supervisor, Senior Philosopher Paul Neddich, by whose side she sat - her larger than planned role in the expedition obligated her to speak on the matter.
Even the nineteen year old Lily Clayton, heir apparent to the title of Dominisa, sat with more confidence than her. It spoke to the power imbalance, and, perhaps, the preparation imbalance. She, in her early thirties, had been prepared to handle lower matters of immediate relevance - the management of an engineering team, most principally. She wasn't ever trained to hold court, or assembly, or to coordinate the work of vast groups from on-high.
She couldn't hear anything from him, but in her heart of hearts she knew Dan was silently giggling at her display. The absolute smartass - he was just here to listen, she was the one who'd been dragged out of her comfort zone to testify.
As everyone settled into their positions, the Consul spoke up. "Ambassador Plenipotentiary Bartolomeo Vassiliades, rise and brief the assembled persons on the mission to the territory of the Axumite Providence."
"As you wish, milady." the aged man declared, rising slowly from his seat with a faint smile. If Sala were that spry when she was his age, maybe that would be proof that a patrician's physical conditioning work was no joke. "Our voyage set out from Alphard following the trail of anomalous signatures in the Caesar's Bow region of space, as ordered. As this was the second expedition, we already had a sense for where we were aiming - a correct one. Just over seven hundred and twenty light years from Alphard, by straight line reckoning, we located the homeworld of the nation known as the Ummadda Barakeysan ee Aksum - which, our language expert has relayed, is commonly translated to Axumite Providence by its own merchants, when dealing with those fluent in English. As the documents submitted will show, we were informed there that they have recently suffered from elevated levels of piracy, and very briefly handled under suspicion of complicity - normally, it is their habit to go to their trade partners, rather than have them come to them, so anyone who actively sought them out was seen as somewhat suspect."
"Well, I don't suppose anyone here can particularly fault them for the paranoia, our own diplomatic footing being as it is." Petra declared, waiving a hand in the air. "It isn't as though we haven't had similar experiences - and we've been far more punitive on those occasions.
Yeah, that was one thing. She hadn't been back on-world for long, but Sala had heard whisperings of a pirate attack that actually made groundfall or something?
"That said…" the consul added, after a moment. "You were dispatched with the intent of achieving more than just a mutual exchange of identities on this occasion. Of the goals you were sent to enact, how many were you able to get around to?"
"That is…" the diplomat began. "Well, it was a bit of a task to communicate in this case, because the high officials with whom I was negotiating no more spoke any of my languages than I theirs, so both sides were working through interpreters, but I'm glad to announce that our primary goals have been achieved, along with a bit more besides. On the topic of the technology transfer, I will defer in a moment to our own interpreter and subject matter expert, Philosopher Sala Bineen of the Promethean Order, but first I will cover in brief the other matters we have settled upon. Firstly, a pact of non-aggression and friendship has been penned - symbolic though it may be given the great distance - along with a general trade agreement permitting either party to send mercantile vessels to the territory of the other. To conclude that agreement… it was necessary to transfer, as was permitted if necessary, a set of Marian star charts - as of the current moment, the location of our various worlds is known in no uncertain terms to a foreign power. The Axumites are interested in particular in importing examples of Spheroid technology for comparison to their own work, and to some extent in purchasing germanium - though they have local sources. In exchange, they are willing to authorize the export of completed jumpships and dropshuttles - their customary exports, though they would not normally include their more distinctive technologies in ships built for export. The Axumites further sought to delineate our respective spheres of influence and astrographic claims - although not settled heavily, they consider the systems within one hundred and twenty light years of Thala to be within their own natural borders for security reasons, but in exchange will acknowledge us as legitimate claimants to the rest of Caesar's Bow if necessary."
The consul flicked her gaze to her compatriots for a second before smiling. "...Rather generous of them to cut the borders that unevenly. What prompted them to accept a 120:600 light year split in the intermediate zone?"
"Expansion towards Terra is not a national priority of theirs in the way that expansion away from it might be regarded as one of ours. The direction of their colonial expansion is primarily oriented deeper into the periphery. Rather, originally the border treaty simply took the form of their noting they had no plans for anything beyond that point - that it would overburden their current humanitarian resources to try and engulf all of those worlds, and that they are not particularly versed in integrating outside cultures into their society." Bartolomeo explained further. "So they suggested to us that if the plight of the locals was a concern, it was more effective for the Marian Union to take up the territory, and would help to solidify trade and defense relations between us - the distance between our capitals may only be, while respecting practical routing, thirty jumps to us, but to them it is closer to sixty - and even allowing for their quick-jump technology, that is roughly a forty three week journey. Hardly within practical reach."
"I suppose so."
"It wasn't until after we'd concluded the technology exchange, though, that they suggested making a formal treaty delineating the theoretical borders, though." the man concluded. "They seemed to think they were giving less than they were receiving in the matter, and so thought to repay one gratuity with another to strengthen ties. They may see quite a lot in the prospect of alliance with us."
This time, it was the Dominus who spoke up, raising his hand slowly. "I understand that they have, evidently, been using the far less efficient Radetsky Architecture of jump drive dating back to the twenty second century due to their isolation, and so even with faster paced jumps achieve lower actual travel speeds, but I'm not sure how an exchange of the Farnsworth Architecture for quick-jump capabilities can be imbalance in such a way. After we each implement each-other's innovations, won't we both be traveling at least forty two light years per week, assuming no further improvements in speed are attained? I would think that more mass and power efficient, longer jumps and more frequent jumps would be considered similarly groundbreaking innovations."
Senior Philosopher Neddich coughed into the ball of his hand. "For that, we will defer to my junior, Philosopher Bineen, as promised. Although I have debriefed her on the matter, as the primary translator involved in preparing the Axumite technical documents for inclusion in our archives and the interpreter of the trade deal, she understands the technical issues involved better."
Sala's hands were like running faucets of sweat, or so it felt. Nodding to psyche herself up, she rose slowly. "Y-y-yes! W-well…"
"At your own pace, Philosopher." Dominus Clayton cautioned, smiling down. "We understand quite well that you're well outside of your comfort zone here."
Swallowing heavily, she nodded again. "Yes, your holiness."
All eyes in the room turned toward her, as she left it filled with silence.
It took another deep breath before she could begin. "Negotiations for this initial technology exchange proceeded, at first, through the preparation of executive summaries of one another's offerings by a meeting of qualified technicians. As a result, they were informed of the qualities of the Farnsworth Architecture, KF booms, and the charging sail, all technologies which developed into publicly available forms at least a century after the departure of their original colonial expedition. Although they were quite taken with the benefits of the architecture and the solar charging sail, they were immediately disinterested in the KF boom after receiving more than a summary explanation of it. Once they explained the general characteristics of their fast jump technology, I came to understand why, and we agreed that the trade was imbalanced in their favor."
"Was the conclusion that docking collars and fast jump technology are inherently incompatible, then?" Alan asked, rubbing his chin. "There must have been some extremely damning evidence, if you came to that mutual conclusion so incredibly quickly as that."
Sala nodded. "You are familiar with the way that a Lithium-Fusion Battery integrates with its paired core, yes? It is fundamentally integrated with the structure of the core in a way that makes it impossible to simply pop out and replace, or to install after the fact, and although the fundamental core architecture remains unchanged it makes it many times more difficult to successfully cast the core, particularly if docking collars are desired. Fast-jump technology is a similarly invasive but far bulkier assembly. The entire core must be designed to integrate specialized cooling and charging lines, and then wrapped in a vastly expanded engineering section integrating added heat banks, helium tankage, capacitors, breeder reactors, and an untold number of autonomous control systems and monitoring devices, to facilitate safely cooling and charging in five days without allowing any surges or imbalanced thermal exchanges from damaging the drive. Even if a collar could successfully be cast as part of the core, it would render the engineering section and cooling-charging sleeve impossible to shape properly and introduce a point of weakness - of failure into the drive. From their perspective, integrating the technology with the newer design principles seemed poised to reduce drive mass and increase per-jump range, while the use of variable-diameter charging sails seemed poised to reduce their dependency on regular refueling greatly. They stand to greatly improve their ships while giving up nothing, particularly if further trade in computers and other technology can enhance the fast-charge systems, while we…"
"Cannot integrate fast charge technology without giving up a fundamental part of what has defined Spheroid interstellar travel for nearly five hundred years." Alan conclude, cupping his chin. "It'd mean a return to the use of dropshuttles, in exchange for a greater speed. We could jump forty two, sixty, perhaps even one day two hundred and ten light years in a single week, but at the start and end of the trip it would take hours to load and unload our parasite craft. I'm surprised they were so forthright as to try and even out that disparity - normally you'd simply be happy to have a trade deal go your way."
Ambassador Bartolomeo rose again, coughing into the back of his hand. "They seemed very particular about strengthening relationships. It is my belief that they have identified further technology transfers with the Marian Union as fundamental to their national security. Furthermore…given the content of some of our other discussions, I believe they may hope that our expansion will enable us to engage in a formal defensive alliance in the future, or to conduct joint antipiracy efforts in our mutual hinterland. Additionally, they would like for me to return with permission to exchange permanent embassies on each-other's capitals, each of us contributing to the arrangement by committing to commit at least one ship to the task of ensuring that one round trip is concluded every year."
The head of the senate glanced to her peers. "Making such a long trip a regular event would probably strain the health and sanity of those involved if we were to stick with the Scouts. However… we've recently acquired a vessel that could make the trip without undue discomfort, and which wouldn't fit well into our existing transportation network. All we'd need to do is set up appropriate production of spare parts, yes?"
Responding to that look, Sala's own top superior cupped his chin.
"Spare parts for a Star Lord…it's a notoriously difficult ship to keep in good order, due to its complexity and luxury." the Dominus commented. "But we believe that the Shetland can be restored to, and kept in, full working order, and the things are fairly traditional as diplomatic transports for a reason. The crew would be kept under full earth gravity throughout the entire trip with relative comfort, and six collars would be enough to permit…well, not a large volume of trade as a secondary to the diplomatic contact, but it would be some trade - over such large distances, ideas are a denser carrier of value than material items anyways."
"So, then, are we for it?" asked the Consul.
The Tribunal Dux broke her silence for the first time in the evening. "I'm naturally for an exchange of diplomatic relationships with them, now that we've gone so far as to reveal our existence and location to them, but before putting my support behind anything like an alliance, I'd like to hear a bit more about their society - and in particular, their human rights record. As someone who oversees justice and the popular will, I can't in good conscience ask our citizens to support a monstrous society."
The ambassador smiled. "I think you'll find that what we've seen is much more encouraging than that, although it would take more missions to conclusively determine whether we've seen it all. As of now, though… they seem like a very charitable and humanitarian people, at least within their own borders. Just… without a particular excess of resources with which to expand that policy beyond them."
"I suppose that will have to do for now."
---
Scene 2
---Comstar First Circuit Compound
Hilton Head Island, North America, Terra
December 2970
"For your eyes, Precentor."
Karl Sims furrowed his brow as one of his staffers passed a verigraphed compad to him, before darting out of the room. It was relatively rare that something needed to be escalated directly to him unscheduled like this - normally, it was only if Precentor Mars was reaching out or in critical circumstances that he'd receive reports piecemeal rather than consolidated between departments.
This one didn't bear the seal of the Explorer Corps nor Outward Intelligence, though. "What the devil has the Mercenary Review Board reaching out to ROM like this?"
Tapping his thumb on the scanner pad, he grumbled at the blood droplets that seeped out after he drew it away - damned needles. Whoever had elected to verigraph the damned thing to him had made his life a hair more difficult just now. Probably some novice staffer who underestimated the security of his electronic inbox and so felt it needed to be delivered in a bloodthirstier form.
Resorting to physical tablets as a medium for data transfer was only protocol for when the system was dow-
He checked his desktop briefly. The system was down for maintenance, and he hadn't noticed. A sigh rumbled out of his chest. He tapped at the one file left on the thing, feeling briefly like a bit of a fool for getting worked up about that. He was in charge of far too much to be flying off the handle at the illusion of a single improperly filed document.
Scanning the headline of the document slowly, he massaged his forehead. The 'United Shipyard Association of the Free Worlds League' was seeking three mercenary regiments with which to enforce an embargo on the commercial activities of the Illyrian Palatinate. That was an…aspirational order on their part, but on its own nothing about it explained to him why he should care about it.
The phrase Illyrian Palatinate was vaguely familiar to him, but not in a way where he could actually point to it on a map, while he'd never heard of the USAFWL.
His eyes drifted down to scan the lead paragraph for context. The Association was… a privately traded joint-company incorporated by the current CEOs of the Free Worlds League's jumpship manufacturers just over a year ago. That was big news. Why the bloody hell hadn't he heard about it then, though?
They were seeking to embargo the Illyrian Palatinate to stem the flow of 'illicit' germanium, illegally mined from a facility they claimed ownership of by a double crossing business associate and similarly treacherous mercenaries. They'd been fraudulently induced into paying for the rights to a germanium mine which was not located at the suggested coordinates by the heir to a pre-Succession War company which evidently owned the source planet, and intended now to occupy the periphery state which was laundering the material into the Free Worlds League to facilitate the acquisition of the source system's true location in order to recover their property.
Really, though, why hadn't he heard of this? And why did parts of it seem so familiar?
The context, he understood quite well now - a regiment each of battlemechs and conventional forces had gone AWOL on a mission to seize a germanium mine from squatters, issued by a purchasing cartel founded by the leads of various jumpship manufacturers in order to profit off of selling the material to the companies they, themselves, were substantial minority shareholders in. This mine was sold to them but then fraudulently retained by its presumptive lawful inheritor, and so in order to recover their property, they sought to effectively conquer a minor periphery state and use it as a bridge to force the information out of the merchants.
What a perfectly Spheroid thing to do.
Why did it bother him so much more than one would normally expect, though?
Ah, there was an approximate map of the area at the bottom of the document - rendered in text, mercifully, because this Compad could barely accept even the most rudimentary images.
Naturally, given its evident proximity to the Free Worlds League, the target of this planned violence was… Rimward-Antispinward of Terra.
Rimward-Antispinward. That was the last direction the Explorer Corps was set to travel in - depending on how long their ballooning involvement in their other operations areas took, they were expected to start exhaustive surveying of the region in 2980 or later. It'd been set up approximately that way because it was…where Precentor Mars actually wanted to look.
He let out a long, anguished groan.
It was where Precentor Mars actually wanted to look… because the mercenaries hired by the family he'd become obsessed with had turned up in the Illyrian Palatinate. What had they been doing there? Helping some unsavory character who shared a last name with the disappeared family sell germanium!
The memories came back like a flood, and his inquisitive mind instantly drew associations between them.
He needed to get some of his clerks on this matter a week ago, and he needed to talk to his sister about this yesterday. This was time sensitive in a way very few things were.
- -
"Goodness, Karl. What's got you breathing so hard with Christmas so near at hand?"
Adrienne watched him with a concerned gaze as he stood, heaving over her desk, hands clasped on the rim.
"I just so happen… haaa-haaa… to believe I've found Precentor Mars' little obsession." he proclaimed, trying to catch his breath even as he spoke.
"Sit the hell down before you try to explain anything, brother." she snapped, gesturing to the chair. "It does us both no good if you die of a heart attack before you finish a paragraph. What's this about Mars' fixation with the O'Reilly's, though?"
It was only natural that she'd remembered the name sooner than he had. She was the smarter sibling.
He settled back into the guest chair and sat as quietly as he could for a few seconds, rhythmically tapping his own forehead. "Not so long ago, a report came to my desk from our agents in the Mercenary Review Board. A contract had been posted on the board for a multi-regimental subjugation force to occupy the Illyrian Palatinate - that periphery state the court fool used to visit as a merchant, where the pirate-mercenaries he was so convinced had killed that family had been spotted were selling germanium. It was posted by a group of jumpship manufacturers, to facilitate their claiming control over a lucrative germanium mine located somewhere in the region, suspected to be occupied by pirates, which was formerly owned by one 'Alphard Trading Company', based on the planet of Alphard, not far from Terra, during the Star League days. They'd purchased it from the lawful inheritor on good evidence of its legitimacy, but were given false coordinates, and suspect the seller has convinced the mercenaries hired to betray them and seize control himself."
"It does sound like whatever they're trying to claim is the location he's so fixated on, but…" his sister asked, wrinkling her nose at him. "What's the significance of learning all of this now?"
"I know where the mine is! I tracked down shipping manifests in the Star League era archives originated from the ATC, sourcing their germanium as mined on a second world known as Alphard, located approximately -405, -298 around a G3 class star. " Karl declared throwing his hands out wide. "But more than that, every bit further we've dug into the situation has just made it more clear that something as profoundly concerning as Mars' sensationalist warnings is happening in the region. Since fairly early this century, roughly coinciding with the renewed flow of germanium presumed to originate on New Alphard, there's been a sharp decline in reported incidents of piracy in the flank of the Free Worlds League, and an accompanying increase in commercial activity - though the disappearances of those who've gone beyond the boundary of the Inner Sphere have remained at the normal rate. This effect has even been felt as far as parts of the antispinward Lyran Commonwealth, and-"
"Shh, shh, shh." Adrienne cautioned, holding a finger out to him. "I understand. Mark might have been surprisingly on-the-mark about whatever's going on down there being a serious matter. Rather than a single planet bandit holdout, it's more like we're looking at a real, growing nation there - one with the rule of law, actual anchoring power, and the capacity to secure its borders against banditry - plus a serious desire for secrecy. It's possible they lost to the mercenaries, but it's also possible they won. Do you know how they could have gotten into that position to begin with, though?"
He shook his head vigorously. "There's no way the volume of goods known to flow to Illyria in exchange for the germanium can account for that."
"Then they've either got other backers, they've got trade partners in the deep periphery, or they're self-supplied." the Primus mused, cupping the side of her face in one hand. "And we don't know which. Any of those things could be problematic in their own right, but uncertainty is worst. What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to pull out one of the larger ROM cells in the Comguard and task them, along with some other loyalists of mine, to check in on the situation." Karl promised. "Should I cut Mars in on the matter? My personal inclination is no."
The Primus chewed her bottom lip. "No, I don't believe so. He doesn't truly understand, nor believe in, our divine mission. His interest in this matter is purely a matter of sentiment - of curiosity, and he can't be relied upon to guide his subordinates appropriately for what's to come once his goals are satisfied. We need people who can be relied upon to react rationally, rather than emotionally, commanding this operation."
"I'll keep him out of the loop on this, then." Karl replied, massaging his chin. "As for forces, at the very least, I think we need to consider the possibility that the USAFWL have underestimated the forces needed to seize their target, and have an appropriately re-sized military response waiting for if it proves necessary to destroy what we discover."
"Good. Do that." Adrienne insisted, her eyes narrow. "Make sure to prepare properly for it, though. If my drea-... if the worse possibilities we've imagined are true, we'll just need to let our kind associate Mark find the ruins of his reward in place of the real thing."
Karl nodded, a frown on his face at the near reference to her dreams. "I'll prepare for the possibility that the jumpship manufacturers are underestimating the resistance they'd face trying to take their prize. The first step, though, will be the threat assessment itself. Anything of the sort will, however, invariably take time to prepare - particularly if it is to be subtle."
"We'll need to make extra work for the Explorer Corps, then." Adrienne concluded. "To make sure Mars doesn't give away the game before we're ready. Give them an order to investigate the rumors of an elusive star nation in the rimward nebulae that they've been reporting."
"Of course."
---
Scene 3
---Zenith Jump Point, Alphard System
Marian Union, Antispinward Periphery
March 2979
As the jump completed, Precentor Jeff Jonnels was already in motion. "Sweemey, restore sensors as soon as possible and conduct an active search. Phibirev, get the comms system online to monitor local radio traffic. Erochia, ensure the crew of Deliverance remains at battle positions. Nondesi, prepare the HPG to broadcast as necessary. Lhodes, be ready to carry out an escape jump upon demand."
There was no time for gentle, gradual recovery or anything else of the sort, and the crew of Toyama's Vision knew it well. This operation had been roughly nine years in the making - nine years to secure the necessary ships out of the Tramp production runs, to gather the forces needed from ROM and the Comguards, to manufacture their covers as members of the Explorer Corps, to push through this mission without Mars noticing. Now that they were in what should, for all purposes, be considered enemy territory, there was no room for relaxation.
Half a minute passed before the call went out from the other side of the room. "Passive sensors are online. No immediate contacts registered. Heavy radio frequency noise noted. Active sensors online in two-point-five minutes."
That seemed to confirm that they'd arrived in the correct system - in the second Alphard. Looking at the readouts fed over to his personal panel, the captain of the vessel could see very clearly that the quantity of radio communications reaching out to the jump point was great enough that only a major planetary civilization could allow for it. No doubt, if they idled at the jump point a while this ship was capable of giving much more detailed readouts on it, but they already had a profile on the planetary ecology from the ancient records that led them here.
It wouldn't be necessary, though - they were here to visit that planet, to measure its threat level, to acquire navigational charts, and to enable the full surveyed or - if necessary - destruction of the civilization this world so clearly anchored.
It was regrettable to consider destroying a hardy flower that could bloom even during the depredations of the Succession Wars - Blessed Blake himself had written quite clearly that Comstar's first mission was to prevent the eradication of civilization. However, they had already failed at that task, and quite dramatically at that. Thus did the prophet Toyama caution them that the downfall was already set in stone - that they could only seek to survive through to the other end and restore civilization from there, and his disciple Karpov cautioned that for the sake of ensuring that, despite protracted association with the monsters of the Great Houses, Comstar did not become tainted with their madness, it would be necessary to greatly accelerate the collapse by expanding a Holy Shroud to snare away the lords of carrion who feasted upon the viscera of once great humanity.
If these people were not a threat or were not corrupted, they could be made part of Blake's holy work. If not, they would need to be laid to waste to preserve the seedcorn for a new humanity from their salting of the earth. That they made few if any clear external moves suggested that they may be at least somewhat clear of the madness that infested the Inner Sphere.
"Communications are encrypted. Code unknown." declared one of Phibirev's acolytes, fingers clattering loudly on her keyboard.
"HPG confirmed ready for emergency broadcast."
"Continuous jump calculations underway!"
"Active sensors online in five…four…three…two…one!" Sweemey called out, before shock overtook his face. "Multiple large scale contacts detected higher in the jump point. There's a silent running ambush force waiting above us!"
Precentor Jonnels rubbed his chin. "Broadcast an unencrypted call for them to hold fire. Inform them that the neutrality of the Comstar Explorer Corps is backed by international treaty, the threat of strict interdiction, and the very divine will of Blake himself, and that we have no hostile intentions in entering the Alphard system."
Well, a civilization off the network might not have cared so much about either of those latter two items, but it was important to use the name to protect themselves here. These sorts of precautions weren't totally unknown, simply increasingly rare in a time of ever-degrading infrastructure and fleets - they gave system defenders time to evaluate the threat posed by a new arrival and seek an ideal time, if a threat was identified, to strike. There was no inherent guarantee of violence on the part of the locals just from this.
It was still possible that their isolationist and defensive footing could be made useful, or that they lacked the capabilities needed to justify any harsher treatment than was given to other extant nations in the case of belligerence.
The message was sent, and Jeff waited.
"Thermal signatures rising from ambush force - they've turned their reactors back on!"
He gritted his teeth. "Ready the Deliverance to launch!"
Phibirev cut through the tension with a firm shout. "Receiving continuous laser broadcast from local forces. Format is audiovisual. Permission to put it onscreen, Precentor?"
"Granted."
The large screen at the head of the bridge changed contents immediately, charts banished from sight to be replaced with a remarkably clear video broadcasted from the bridge of one of the vessels that were now stationkeeping 'above' Toyama's Vision. On it, a woman he'd place at perhaps about forty years of age occupied the screen, dressed in an outfit unmistakable as anything other than a military uniform, already mid-sentence. "-the Alphard system is under strict quarantine for disease management purposes. Do not attempt to burn into the system. Repeat: Comstar Explorer Corps vessel, this is Commodore Alison Brancis of the Joint Military of the Marian Union, broadcasting to inform you that by order of the central government, the Alphard system is under strict quarantine for-"
"Should we return transmission, Precentor?"
He pondered that for a second. "Link my personal camera and microphone for transmission. I will control them personally."
"Yes, sir!"
His right hand rested on his personal console, and once the light turned green he flicked the audio and video switches to on. "Commodore Brancis, Precentor Jeff Jonnels of the Comstar Explorer Corps speaking. Is it possible that we-"
- -
"- may be able to offer any sort of medical aid in this troubled time?"
Alison wanted to click her tongue, but she couldn't. She was on video right now, for the sake of avoiding seeming too threatening. Even if she muted herself to rant in private, they'd see the lipflaps - or notice that she'd shut off the camera briefly. They were already several scripts down the list of pre-prepared responses to unauthorized entry after these visitors had pinged them with active sensors, sought to make peaceful contact, and used the proper name of the star system. "I'm afraid you misunderstand, Precentor. The quarantine is not to keep a pestilence in - it is to keep it out. It is well known that the Inner Sphere has abandoned the laws and customs of civilized warfare and employed weapons of mass destruction, biological ones included. As such, any vessel which has left our borders - or come from outside of it - is required to observe a minimum forty day quarantine to prevent the spread of long-incubation bioagents."
The blond man broadcasting from the newly arrived Tramp - which was now being continuously scanned for distinguishing characteristics and unusual activity - tented his hands together and sighed. "Commodore, Blessed Blake's Explorer Corps is an elite institution born from the center of human civilization. Even if the absolute, deep barbarism you speak of were not an element of a bygone era of the Succession Wars, we alone would be unquestionably clean handed."
She could feel her blood pressure rise at the arrogant praise of Terra, but she tamped down on it. No matter what, she couldn't let them go through to the planet. Holding them up here was necessary to prevent them from detecting the shipyard under construction in orbit around the planet, and allow time to formulate a better response. They already knew the name of this system, which meant they'd recovered records of its existence, perhaps even deliberately came here specifically to check in on it. Maybe they'd gotten curious after the attack earlier in the decade and stumbled upon Star League era records while trying to track down the source of the germanium entering the market.
It ought to be well within their ability. Comstar was in the guide on military protocol as a significant potential threat - the founders believed that the Star League successor organization was most likely far more dangerous, ambitious, and advanced than it presented itself as being.
In any case, assuming their claimed identity was genuine - and given that the man was dressed in robes that matched their supposed uniform, she was inclined to believe it was so - it would achieve comparatively little to seize their ship immediately. Comstar already knew about Alphard, and almost certainly already suspected that there was an interstellar civilization of some sort located around it. Seizing their vessels - entirely possible even with their full forces remaining here, given the enhanced jump point security since the last attack - would simply lead them to believe that it was a pirate civilization - which could theoretically serve their purposes, but equally might result in them leaking the coordinates to try and have them dealt with by the League or some other party.
It was better, in this case, to have them leave with an impression that painted the system as unremarkable and unworthy of attention. Fortunately, there was time to wait them out - there were no more scheduled arrivals this week.
She sighed, giving a firm shake of her head. "I do not have the authority to alter the quarantine protocol, Precentor. Your vessels will not be permitted access to the inner system without observing the quarantine period, and that is final."
Precentor Jonnels frowned, his brow furrowed. "It is disappointing to learn that you trust in Blake so little. All of the nations of the Inner Sphere permit the Blessed Order - along with operating HPG stations on their surfaces - to utilize the land it is apportioned to provide free education and medical services to those in need, and to these ends guarantee the freedom of travel of members of the Blessed Order regardless of the circumstances as part of the service contract. If we were carrying plague about like some rambling band of refugees might, humanity would already have found its extinction."
"Be that as it may, there exists no contractual relationship between our nation and Comstar." the Commodore declared, matching the irritation evident from the man on the other end of the line. "We have no obligation to risk the safety of our homeland on your say-so. Furthermore, we have no direct proof of your identity or qualifications. We must ask you to leave when able, if you will not observe the quarantine."
Jeff's face turned a bit red at that. "If you cannot trust a good neighbor, you certainly will not be judged as one yourself, Commodore. In this era of healing, we have begun reestablishing HPG stations in much of the periphery, but if you are unable to embrace Comstar as a worthy partner, the Marian Union surely shall not receive the blessings of Blake's holy technology, and remain in darkness. Nevertheless… if you will provide us with the locations of other systems in the Marian Union, we would gladly visit them instead, to chart your nation and bring it into the civilized company of the rest of charted space."
By now, she was completely certain that this man and his vessel had been dispatched for the sole purpose of surveying Alphard. "The other systems of the Union are also under similar quarantine measures. Besides which, I cannot comply with that request. It is not the intention of the government to seek closer cohabitation with the Inner Sphere or charted Periphery nations. If we had any such intention, we would have established formal contact some time ago and given out the information on our own initiative. Missing out on the chance to receive, in whatever lukewarm form is truly being given to the Periphery, Comstar's services is a fairly small price to pay for the safety that comes with anonymity and invisibility - the greatest shields against the barbarism of this age, of the Inner Sphere states."
The man gritted his teeth. "Your paranoia will doom your civilization to misery and gradual decline in the darkness beyond Terra's light.
"Such hostility is unwarranted." she replied. "If you truly simply wish to do your charitable duty as a member of Comstar. Do you make a habit of forcing your services upon nations against their choosing?"
His eyes were sharp as he glared back. "It is not your place to tell me what is or is not warranted, Periphery barbarian. Is it the right of any government to inflict suffering in silence and deprivation on its citizens, just to preserve the power of the elite? We shall not leave until you permit us entry."
"That is how quarantines work, yes. If you're equipped for exploration, I doubt you'll have any issue with surviving through a mere forty day quarantine."
She mentally checked out of the conversation for the moment, leaving the man to rant on his own flicking through the notifications that were building up on her console before, eventually, noting one from the intelligence sector of the station. The expanded sensor and communications masts beyond those standard for the Tramp class jumpship, they claimed, made the vessel a perfect match for the ships used by coreward pirates who'd been robbing the Axumites.
Slowly, she glanced back to the camera. Even assuming they weren't the pirates that'd attacked Axum, this at least provided a valid excuse to tell them to leave indefinitely. There was nothing better she could possibly be given right now, aside from a legitimate cause to board and seize the vessel. "'Precentor' Jonnels, your modified vessel has been identified as a potential match for a variant known to be used by pirates in this region of the periphery. You will leave as soon as your drive is charged and not return, or we will initiate hostilities."
A vein bulged on his forehead. "This is absurd. You have no right! You will not- this is!"
He cut the transmission there. She matched the gesture with a sigh.
"Commodore, a significant radio signature is being produced from the target vessel!"
She glanced back to her chief sensor officer, Dan Fitzgerald. "Are they jumping? Does that thing have a Lithium Fusion battery?"
"Negative, not a jump signature." the man denied. "Going by the handbook, this signature is indicative of a mobile hyperpulse generator unit."
"They're broadcasting?" she cried. "Prepare all crews to board the vessel immediately - permission to destroy it if necessary is granted, but it is preferred that you recover the coordinates it is broadcasting to."
Dan let out an uncharacteristically high yelp a moment later. "That won't be necessary, Commodore. Multiple emergent jump signatures detected. They called reinforcements!"
She smashed her hand against the console, a mix of panic beginning to overtake her. "Call ours, then!"
It was time to put their preparations to the test, it seemed.
---------
Bit late, I will acknowledge. But! There's a bonus.
Marian Union (2979): National and Planetary Profiles
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
---
National Profile: Marian Union (2979)
—
Location: Rimward/Antispinward Periphery
Capital: Alphard
Form of Government: Social Constitutional Federal Triarchy
Founded: 2925
Military: Joint Military of the Marian Union
Currency: Talent
National Official Language: English
Regional Official Languages: Spanish, Greek, Italian, French, Welsh, Swedish, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese
Inhabited Systems: 31
Population: 2.62 Billion (Average of 84 million per world - 31 million excluding major worlds.)
- MAJOR SYSTEMS -
Alphard
Stellar Class: G3
Recharge Time: 184 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 4
Mainworld Jump Distance: 8.53 Days
Mainworld Gravity: ~1.0
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 33 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 55%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Mammal
System Capital: Pomerium Planned City
System Population: ~1,250,000,000
System USILR: Advanced/A/A/A/A
Notes: As the capital of the Marian Union and the home to nearly half of the nation's population, the vast majority of the industrial power of the nation is concentrated on this planet. The largest and most prestigious of the nation's universities, the Grand Academy of Prometheus' main campus (GAP - Alphard), is located in the traditional Promethean capital of Kallipolis. Every year, vast quantities of advanced goods and great numbers of skilled and highly educated graduates flood out of this world to see to the needs of the nation's many less developed worlds. The natural germanium concentration of this planet is a high statistical outlier, giving it essentially unmatched returns from germanium mining efforts.
Pompey
Stellar Class: G4
Recharge Time: 185 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 3rd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 7.96 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 0.92
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 31 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 57%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Avians
System Capital: Naples
System Population: ~360,000,000
System USILR: A/B/B/C/A
Notes: One of the most historically populous and earliest annexed worlds of the Marian Union, Pompey is often looked upon as the second capital - home to roughly a quarter of the portion of the national population not living on Alphard, this world was a natural pick to house the second campus of the GAP. Also located on this world is the second largest facility of the Marian Armory Service, run by the Promethean Order, which produces a modest portion of the nation's battlemechs, armored vehicles, fighters, and powered armor. 10% of the nation's industrialmechs are also manufactured on-world. Due to its position, it receives students from many of the more recently incorporated - and hence less developed - worlds of the Marian union.
New Venice
Stellar Class: F4
Recharge Time: 175 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 4th
Mainworld Jump Distance: ~17 days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.1
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 40 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 87%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Reptiles
System Capital: Venezia
System Population: ~115,000,000
System USILR: A/C/C/C/A
Notes: Hot, humid, and heavy, New Venice has been catapulted to national prominence primarily by its strategic position at the junction with the former Lothian League and its proximity to Alphard. Although local industries are not as well developed as some parts of the union, in part due to the high cost of raw materials on-world, it was selected as the site for a major branch campus of GAP due to the high planetary population and its strategically significant location. Second only to the Alphard campus, GAP - New Venice receives countless students from other worlds, eager to enjoy the tropical paradise for what it is, though the graduation rate is depressed to a statistically significant degree by the much stronger party culture instilled in its students by the paradisiacal climate of the Venezian microcontinent on which it sits.
Islington
Stellar Class: M8
Recharge Time: 209 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 3rd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 2.09 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 0.9
Mainworld Atmosphere: Thin (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 42 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 48%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Insects
System Capital: Clerkenwell
System Population: 55,000,000
System USILR: A/D/A/D/C
Notes: Hot, arid, thin-atmosphered, low in gravity, and high in UV radiation and biting insects, Islington is not a particularly pleasant world, and the population matches it. With the planet being rich in rare earth metals, one would normally expect for it to be relegated to merely a mining world. However, Islington was not relegated to such a lowly fate. The planetary population, forced to live in domes or underground for protection from intense UV radiation, was very excited when, by virtue of its long history as a planet of the Union, its unique biosphere, and its strategically important position as a connecting system in the rimward part of the nation, it was selected to host GAP's smallest full-service campus, the genetic and cybernetic programs of which are among of the finest in the nation thanks to its Niopsian faculty and heavy involvement in the work being done on Frobisher. Many of the least developed planets in the Union send students to Islington due to its proximity.
Niops
Stellar Class: M5*
Recharge Time: 192 Hours*
Mainworld System Position: 7th
Mainworld Jump Distance: 2.4 days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.04
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 32 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 82%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Fish
System Capital: Niops City
System Population: ~30,000,000
System USILR: A/A/C/D/C
Notes: A genuine relic of the Star League, illuminated by an impossible blue dwarf star, Niops has always been a center of research and technology. First founded on order of the Camerons to research the anomalous qualities of the local star and conduct experiments on powered armor, the system's three habitable planets survived the Succession Wars intact through obscurity and the absorption of Capellan refugees to supplement the Terran researchers who remained behind. Since the oppressive Niops Association was absorbed and deposed by the Marian Union, GAP - Niops on the planet of Niops-7 has conducted renewed research into astronomy, while the workshops of the system have produced, if in vanishingly small quantities, some of the finest machine tools and other technological products in the Union.
- MINOR SYSTEMS -
Lothario
Stellar Class: M3
Recharge Time: 204 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 2nd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 2.67 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.1
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 20 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 70%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Mammal
System Capital: Vatnajökull
System Population: ~13,000,000
System USILR: B/B/C/B/A
Notes: The capital of the Lothian League Autonomous Region is a strong example of both the benefits and limits of the Marian Union's education and economic development initiatives. Although the once war-ravaged world has received ample reconstruction aid over the decades and was once considered as the site for a full GAP campus, the meager population of the system rendered the local pool of students much smaller than would normally be required to properly utilize even a very small research university of the sort, while the remarkably poor climate and proximity to New Venice has made relocation to the planet undesirable for the sort of remarkable students who would normally receive invitations to relocate for higher education. The University of Lothario is a fine institution, owing to the world's history as the former heart of a mostly self-sufficient nation, but it exists amid superior competition.
Leximon
Stellar Class: K0
Recharge Time: 191 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 2nd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 5.48 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.2
Mainworld Atmosphere: Thick (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 41 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 55%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Avians
System Capital: Galliopolis
System Population: ~7,000,000
System USILR: C/C/A/A/A
Notes: Suffering from an extremely small population, as do most worlds of the former Lothian League due to the small founder population, Leximon is a home to relatively very limited economic and educational sophistication. The planet is, relative to its population, a very productive industrial center at the level of sophistication that used to mark Lothian's upper limit, and is blessed with abundant natural resources, but development is presently simply too lacking to expect much from the world.
Herculaneum
Stellar Class: G2
Recharge Time: 183 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 3rd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 9.12 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 1
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 32 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 77%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Mammals
System Capital: Vesuvius
System Population: ~28,000,000
System USILR: C/D/B/D/C
Notes: A comparatively very recent addition to the Marian Union and one without a substantial preexisting industrial base, Herculaneum has only in recent years begun to truly reap the benefits of the development aid it receives. Although expected to become a perfectly respectable member system within the union eventually, the world will remain sorely dependent on support from other worlds for the considerable future.
Carthago
Stellar Class: K1
Recharge Time: 192 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 2nd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 5.18 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 0.8
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 26 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 66%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Fish
System Capital: Carthago City
System Population: 6,000,000
System USILR: C/D/C/D/A
Notes: One of very few systems in the Marian Union which was colonized from a previously uninhabited state, the settled regions of Carthago enjoy the benefits of being planned for efficiency from the beginning, but it has yet to undergo the gradual accumulation of industrial development and knowledge of what natural resources the planet has that any established colony would. Principally, the world serves as a provisioning station and checkpoint for jumpships traveling around the heart of Marian space, but it is expected to eventually develop into a proper world in its own right, if never a bustling one due to the less than ideal gravity of such a small, albeit dense, world.
Frobisher
Stellar Class: K5
Recharge Time: 196
Mainworld System Position: 3rd
Mainworld Jump Distance: ~4.12 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.16
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Tainted)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 37 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 95%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Fish
System Capital: Camp Frobisher Humanitarian Aid Station
System Population: 62,000
System USILR: D/F/D/F/A
Notes: The product of unethical experimentation by the Star League, the colony of Frobisher is minuscule and largely nonviable. The planet has barely any dry land and the air is not safely breathable for extended periods of time without significant filtration. The population consists principally of mere tens of thousands of genetically modified humans with the capacity to live in both sea and on land, many of whom have undergone substantial cybernetic reconstruction to treat the engineered genetic deformities that afflicted them. The rest of the population consists of humanitarian aid personnel dispatched to see to the needs of the locals. There are no viable plans to develop this planet on record - it wholly lacks the resources and qualities needed to support a modern standard of living or large populations. As such, the currently favored solution in the government is a mandated resettlement to other worlds in the Union, though this solution has been openly rejected by roughly one in six Frobisherian locals, who see the planet, despite its flaws, as an ancestral home.
National Profile: Marian Union (2979)
—
Location: Rimward/Antispinward Periphery
Capital: Alphard
Form of Government: Social Constitutional Federal Triarchy
Founded: 2925
Military: Joint Military of the Marian Union
Currency: Talent
National Official Language: English
Regional Official Languages: Spanish, Greek, Italian, French, Welsh, Swedish, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese
Inhabited Systems: 31
Population: 2.62 Billion (Average of 84 million per world - 31 million excluding major worlds.)
- MAJOR SYSTEMS -
Alphard
Stellar Class: G3
Recharge Time: 184 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 4
Mainworld Jump Distance: 8.53 Days
Mainworld Gravity: ~1.0
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 33 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 55%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Mammal
System Capital: Pomerium Planned City
System Population: ~1,250,000,000
System USILR: Advanced/A/A/A/A
Notes: As the capital of the Marian Union and the home to nearly half of the nation's population, the vast majority of the industrial power of the nation is concentrated on this planet. The largest and most prestigious of the nation's universities, the Grand Academy of Prometheus' main campus (GAP - Alphard), is located in the traditional Promethean capital of Kallipolis. Every year, vast quantities of advanced goods and great numbers of skilled and highly educated graduates flood out of this world to see to the needs of the nation's many less developed worlds. The natural germanium concentration of this planet is a high statistical outlier, giving it essentially unmatched returns from germanium mining efforts.
Pompey
Stellar Class: G4
Recharge Time: 185 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 3rd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 7.96 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 0.92
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 31 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 57%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Avians
System Capital: Naples
System Population: ~360,000,000
System USILR: A/B/B/C/A
Notes: One of the most historically populous and earliest annexed worlds of the Marian Union, Pompey is often looked upon as the second capital - home to roughly a quarter of the portion of the national population not living on Alphard, this world was a natural pick to house the second campus of the GAP. Also located on this world is the second largest facility of the Marian Armory Service, run by the Promethean Order, which produces a modest portion of the nation's battlemechs, armored vehicles, fighters, and powered armor. 10% of the nation's industrialmechs are also manufactured on-world. Due to its position, it receives students from many of the more recently incorporated - and hence less developed - worlds of the Marian union.
New Venice
Stellar Class: F4
Recharge Time: 175 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 4th
Mainworld Jump Distance: ~17 days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.1
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 40 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 87%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Reptiles
System Capital: Venezia
System Population: ~115,000,000
System USILR: A/C/C/C/A
Notes: Hot, humid, and heavy, New Venice has been catapulted to national prominence primarily by its strategic position at the junction with the former Lothian League and its proximity to Alphard. Although local industries are not as well developed as some parts of the union, in part due to the high cost of raw materials on-world, it was selected as the site for a major branch campus of GAP due to the high planetary population and its strategically significant location. Second only to the Alphard campus, GAP - New Venice receives countless students from other worlds, eager to enjoy the tropical paradise for what it is, though the graduation rate is depressed to a statistically significant degree by the much stronger party culture instilled in its students by the paradisiacal climate of the Venezian microcontinent on which it sits.
Islington
Stellar Class: M8
Recharge Time: 209 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 3rd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 2.09 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 0.9
Mainworld Atmosphere: Thin (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 42 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 48%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Insects
System Capital: Clerkenwell
System Population: 55,000,000
System USILR: A/D/A/D/C
Notes: Hot, arid, thin-atmosphered, low in gravity, and high in UV radiation and biting insects, Islington is not a particularly pleasant world, and the population matches it. With the planet being rich in rare earth metals, one would normally expect for it to be relegated to merely a mining world. However, Islington was not relegated to such a lowly fate. The planetary population, forced to live in domes or underground for protection from intense UV radiation, was very excited when, by virtue of its long history as a planet of the Union, its unique biosphere, and its strategically important position as a connecting system in the rimward part of the nation, it was selected to host GAP's smallest full-service campus, the genetic and cybernetic programs of which are among of the finest in the nation thanks to its Niopsian faculty and heavy involvement in the work being done on Frobisher. Many of the least developed planets in the Union send students to Islington due to its proximity.
Niops
Stellar Class: M5*
Recharge Time: 192 Hours*
Mainworld System Position: 7th
Mainworld Jump Distance: 2.4 days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.04
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 32 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 82%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Fish
System Capital: Niops City
System Population: ~30,000,000
System USILR: A/A/C/D/C
Notes: A genuine relic of the Star League, illuminated by an impossible blue dwarf star, Niops has always been a center of research and technology. First founded on order of the Camerons to research the anomalous qualities of the local star and conduct experiments on powered armor, the system's three habitable planets survived the Succession Wars intact through obscurity and the absorption of Capellan refugees to supplement the Terran researchers who remained behind. Since the oppressive Niops Association was absorbed and deposed by the Marian Union, GAP - Niops on the planet of Niops-7 has conducted renewed research into astronomy, while the workshops of the system have produced, if in vanishingly small quantities, some of the finest machine tools and other technological products in the Union.
- MINOR SYSTEMS -
Lothario
Stellar Class: M3
Recharge Time: 204 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 2nd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 2.67 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.1
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 20 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 70%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Mammal
System Capital: Vatnajökull
System Population: ~13,000,000
System USILR: B/B/C/B/A
Notes: The capital of the Lothian League Autonomous Region is a strong example of both the benefits and limits of the Marian Union's education and economic development initiatives. Although the once war-ravaged world has received ample reconstruction aid over the decades and was once considered as the site for a full GAP campus, the meager population of the system rendered the local pool of students much smaller than would normally be required to properly utilize even a very small research university of the sort, while the remarkably poor climate and proximity to New Venice has made relocation to the planet undesirable for the sort of remarkable students who would normally receive invitations to relocate for higher education. The University of Lothario is a fine institution, owing to the world's history as the former heart of a mostly self-sufficient nation, but it exists amid superior competition.
Leximon
Stellar Class: K0
Recharge Time: 191 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 2nd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 5.48 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.2
Mainworld Atmosphere: Thick (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 41 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 55%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Avians
System Capital: Galliopolis
System Population: ~7,000,000
System USILR: C/C/A/A/A
Notes: Suffering from an extremely small population, as do most worlds of the former Lothian League due to the small founder population, Leximon is a home to relatively very limited economic and educational sophistication. The planet is, relative to its population, a very productive industrial center at the level of sophistication that used to mark Lothian's upper limit, and is blessed with abundant natural resources, but development is presently simply too lacking to expect much from the world.
Herculaneum
Stellar Class: G2
Recharge Time: 183 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 3rd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 9.12 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 1
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 32 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 77%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Mammals
System Capital: Vesuvius
System Population: ~28,000,000
System USILR: C/D/B/D/C
Notes: A comparatively very recent addition to the Marian Union and one without a substantial preexisting industrial base, Herculaneum has only in recent years begun to truly reap the benefits of the development aid it receives. Although expected to become a perfectly respectable member system within the union eventually, the world will remain sorely dependent on support from other worlds for the considerable future.
Carthago
Stellar Class: K1
Recharge Time: 192 Hours
Mainworld System Position: 2nd
Mainworld Jump Distance: 5.18 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 0.8
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Breathable)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 26 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 66%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Fish
System Capital: Carthago City
System Population: 6,000,000
System USILR: C/D/C/D/A
Notes: One of very few systems in the Marian Union which was colonized from a previously uninhabited state, the settled regions of Carthago enjoy the benefits of being planned for efficiency from the beginning, but it has yet to undergo the gradual accumulation of industrial development and knowledge of what natural resources the planet has that any established colony would. Principally, the world serves as a provisioning station and checkpoint for jumpships traveling around the heart of Marian space, but it is expected to eventually develop into a proper world in its own right, if never a bustling one due to the less than ideal gravity of such a small, albeit dense, world.
Frobisher
Stellar Class: K5
Recharge Time: 196
Mainworld System Position: 3rd
Mainworld Jump Distance: ~4.12 Days
Mainworld Gravity: 1.16
Mainworld Atmosphere: Standard (Tainted)
Mainworld Equatorial Temperature: 37 Celsius
Mainworld Water Coverage: 95%
Mainworld Native Life: Pseudo-Fish
System Capital: Camp Frobisher Humanitarian Aid Station
System Population: 62,000
System USILR: D/F/D/F/A
Notes: The product of unethical experimentation by the Star League, the colony of Frobisher is minuscule and largely nonviable. The planet has barely any dry land and the air is not safely breathable for extended periods of time without significant filtration. The population consists principally of mere tens of thousands of genetically modified humans with the capacity to live in both sea and on land, many of whom have undergone substantial cybernetic reconstruction to treat the engineered genetic deformities that afflicted them. The rest of the population consists of humanitarian aid personnel dispatched to see to the needs of the locals. There are no viable plans to develop this planet on record - it wholly lacks the resources and qualities needed to support a modern standard of living or large populations. As such, the currently favored solution in the government is a mandated resettlement to other worlds in the Union, though this solution has been openly rejected by roughly one in six Frobisherian locals, who see the planet, despite its flaws, as an ancestral home.
I hope they developed something like a dropship with a load of cap missile tubes and nuclear warheads. Something like a common Mule with Ar-10s would be easiest and provide the most bang for your buck.
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AzureShogun
Tanks are better than Mechs
- Location
- United Kingdom
Ohh, exciting! Looking forward to a big space battle and reveals for any new stuff!
The time skip being a straight 9 years to the cliff was a but unexpected and makes me even more eager for the next chapter to learn about what happened in the interim!
The time skip being a straight 9 years to the cliff was a but unexpected and makes me even more eager for the next chapter to learn about what happened in the interim!
I've been hoping for a timeskip since it was dragging on abit but not like this. Not like this. It felt like suffering a Jumpship misjump and found yourself smackdab in the middle of the Amaris Civil War Terra with a Caspar Battleship named Cliff aiming all its weapon at you.
Was also hoping to know what happened to the captured mercenaries and how they felt about the Marian Union in this chapter. Will there be an interlude or sidestory about them?
Was also hoping to know what happened to the captured mercenaries and how they felt about the Marian Union in this chapter. Will there be an interlude or sidestory about them?
Finally, the Terran Hegemonies can fight!
THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!
THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
I could do an interlude in a bit, yeah.
yacov
Lurking and sometimes blurting
- Location
- Clogging a drain
Poor Lothario, you could have been the intellectual heart of any other periphery nation, but in the Marian Union you are basically a community college or a state university in an unpopular state.
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plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
We're operating on a scale where something like the University of Washington system is remarkably adorable, after all. Or at least, that's how I personally reframe the 'this nation has ten universities' lore that shoots through all of Battletech to slightly reduce the stink of FASAnomics. The concept of a university has been narrowed and elevated over time as the scope and complexity of human knowledge has grown, until the universities capable of meaningfully participating in knowledge creation have become full blown cities in their own right by any reasonable metric.
Kataphraktos
Remove gringo from premises
I suppose a hypothetical future NAIS would be closer to the Soviet closed cities rather than "just" an armed and fortified campus, given that setting change.?
yacov
Lurking and sometimes blurting
- Location
- Clogging a drain
Given the space and protection needed for stuff like KF research back in the day, I wouldn't be surprised if they dedicated entire continents for research, or at least for the potential crater such research could make. Terraforming is another area intensive avenue of research back in the Star League days.
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
Yeah, pretty much.
Even in canon, 'Upwards of 200 buildings' is a remarkably meaningless phrase without any quantification of the size of the buildings. If it were upwards of 200 skyscrapers that'd be rather different from upwards of 200 one story portables. In any case, NAIS's student body population would be immense.
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
There's water on other planets too.
The genome is pretty cracked, given that they've got the full records of what was done to it - it's just not possible to turn a fully matured person's body from a deliberately deformed fishlike horror into a healthy humanlike one using genetic modifications alone, hence the cybernetics. The problem with Frobisher as a planet is that it's basically impossible to sustain an industrial or postindustrial economy there because there's virtually no dry land, the gravity is uncomfortably high to most people, and the air is mildly toxic. Plus, it's really far out of the way as worlds go.
GeshronTyler
Kleiner Giftzwerg
Welp, that "First Contact" went SPLENDIDLY 😬 😅 . The reinforcements, I'm assuming, are comparable to the canon "Com Guards" that had massive casualties (Jolly Roger Affair, 3004) trying to dealing with their own pirate auxiliaries "gone renegade", suffering a loss rate of 2.3:1, despite having superior numbers, and equipment...
The ROM commander didn't panic, he was simply constitutionally/doctrinally unable to deal with the situation in any other way than acting like Commodore Perry, or a European/British Empire Colonizing Force. And once the "barbarians" refused to be awed/cowed by their simple existence, the next impulse would be to resort to "Gunboat Diplomacy".
I can certainly imagine how certain tenets of "Blakism" are becoming ingrained into the culture of various Com* factions, especially when they are practically powers unto themselves, leading to the dogmatic inflexibility on display in the initial contact and engagement.
Alas, Adrienne and Karl Sims- no Yin Takami yet? Or at all? Sometime in 2979 was his canon ascension to Primus, while Karl Sims was still ROM...
Ah, things are a bit clearer, but there is now the potential for two concurrent crisis- the canonical Tripitz(Tirpitz?) Affair/New Vandenberg "White Wings" incident, when the Taurians found the derelict Warship, the Capellans got wind of it as well, and ComGuard forces intervened with a "no flag" (because they had no markings, only white paint) operation; and of course the burgeoning Charlie Foxtrot at Alphard.
If the Tripitz still gets found, I imagine it might be more difficult to arrange for an intervention force, if Karl and Adrienne have diverted significant resources. Would be a bad time to have a deficit in Aerospace asset.
Tsk, those two should have left the "covert" survey of the Marian Union to the professionals, Mark's Explorer Corps. You know, the one that actually trains in how to act and appear "legitimate". While the range of MU's (possible) technical capabilities for Jumpoint/Deep Space Jump/Radio Frequency/Electro-Optical signature detection and analysis are a possible OOC problem for any hypothetical Com* observers, there are bound to have been ways to use deep space/ "Off axis/non-standard" jump Insertion to get something like a Bug-Eye (ought to be a few left), or more conventional JS and spy dropper in-system to get some preliminary intelligence.
Or at the very least, not have things escalate so rapidly to where armed conflict is unavoidable. But, it's clear, that Precentor Jonnel can't conceive of a scenario where he doesn't have the bigger stick, and having already been selected for the temperament to make the "Hard Calls", the chips are falling as they may.
I'm confident that the MU will manage to drive off, or defeat/destroy/capture the Com* detachment in due time, if not immediately. Com* biggest problem is not so much the presumed loss of personnel and material and associated intelligence (though possible evidence of ship-borne HPGs, and LF batteries would be damaging), it's if the MU were to start sharing data recordings of the whole incident with IS powers, of "official" Com* forces completely violating their asserted neutrality, and attacking unprovoked.
Admittedly, it would be difficult to distribute, since the Marians couldn't use HPGs to distribute it, they would have to "hand carry" it, and they have absolutely no IS diplomatic contacts..
The ROM commander didn't panic, he was simply constitutionally/doctrinally unable to deal with the situation in any other way than acting like Commodore Perry, or a European/British Empire Colonizing Force. And once the "barbarians" refused to be awed/cowed by their simple existence, the next impulse would be to resort to "Gunboat Diplomacy".
I can certainly imagine how certain tenets of "Blakism" are becoming ingrained into the culture of various Com* factions, especially when they are practically powers unto themselves, leading to the dogmatic inflexibility on display in the initial contact and engagement.
Alas, Adrienne and Karl Sims- no Yin Takami yet? Or at all? Sometime in 2979 was his canon ascension to Primus, while Karl Sims was still ROM...
Ah, things are a bit clearer, but there is now the potential for two concurrent crisis- the canonical Tripitz(Tirpitz?) Affair/New Vandenberg "White Wings" incident, when the Taurians found the derelict Warship, the Capellans got wind of it as well, and ComGuard forces intervened with a "no flag" (because they had no markings, only white paint) operation; and of course the burgeoning Charlie Foxtrot at Alphard.
If the Tripitz still gets found, I imagine it might be more difficult to arrange for an intervention force, if Karl and Adrienne have diverted significant resources. Would be a bad time to have a deficit in Aerospace asset.
Tsk, those two should have left the "covert" survey of the Marian Union to the professionals, Mark's Explorer Corps. You know, the one that actually trains in how to act and appear "legitimate". While the range of MU's (possible) technical capabilities for Jumpoint/Deep Space Jump/Radio Frequency/Electro-Optical signature detection and analysis are a possible OOC problem for any hypothetical Com* observers, there are bound to have been ways to use deep space/ "Off axis/non-standard" jump Insertion to get something like a Bug-Eye (ought to be a few left), or more conventional JS and spy dropper in-system to get some preliminary intelligence.
Or at the very least, not have things escalate so rapidly to where armed conflict is unavoidable. But, it's clear, that Precentor Jonnel can't conceive of a scenario where he doesn't have the bigger stick, and having already been selected for the temperament to make the "Hard Calls", the chips are falling as they may.
I'm confident that the MU will manage to drive off, or defeat/destroy/capture the Com* detachment in due time, if not immediately. Com* biggest problem is not so much the presumed loss of personnel and material and associated intelligence (though possible evidence of ship-borne HPGs, and LF batteries would be damaging), it's if the MU were to start sharing data recordings of the whole incident with IS powers, of "official" Com* forces completely violating their asserted neutrality, and attacking unprovoked.
Admittedly, it would be difficult to distribute, since the Marians couldn't use HPGs to distribute it, they would have to "hand carry" it, and they have absolutely no IS diplomatic contacts..
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
This operation was planned long before 2979 - see the chapter starting in 2970 - and Adrienne could have died any time in 2979 besides.
GeshronTyler
Kleiner Giftzwerg
Ah, right, the timeskip says nothing about what Adrienne's, or even Karl's, status is currently, or what office politics might be going on at Hilton Head. Aside from not having derailed the mission to survey the MU.
It made for amusing reading how the Sims wanted to make sure those sent on the mission to MU would be "true believers", but "rational" minded...
I'm looking forward to seeing if the MUs emergence causes other states to form early. I could see the Rim Collection and Aurigan Coalition forming or coming to prominence earlier.